the end and the beginning
by Astralis
Summary: Helen Magnus is two hundred and seventy four years old, and tired. Set towards the end of "Sanctuary for None", somewhere before the last scene. Helen/Nikola UST, giant spoilers.


Helen Magnus is two hundred and seventy four years old, and tired.

Her new office looks out over the water, one of a thousand deliberate decisions she's spent the last century or so making. Now, in the aftermath of the day she changed the world, she stands at the window and sees nothing of what she created and loves.

The door opens behind her. She's been waiting for it, and the sound comes as a relief. "Hello Nikola."

"Helen." He comes to stand behind her, puts one hand on her shoulder, and for once there's nothing opportunistic about it. He's been overdoing the cologne again. Subtlety is not his thing. "So this is what we were working on. You and me, in New York."

Some things are easier with the weight of secrecy lifted. "When did you realise? That I was older?"

"About three seconds after you arrived."

"James was the same way. When I went back." They always knew her better than she knew herself.

"Well, Helen, this place is spectacular. And very quiet. Where are the children?"

_Angry. And betrayed. And grieving._ Her voice steadier than it should be, Helen says "Kate's gone home. Henry has gone to London to see Erika, and I imagine Will is in a bar somewhere with Abby." They should all be here now, with her, but Helen gave Kate a new life, destroyed the only place Henry had ever called home, and pushed Will's ability to trust to breaking point and beyond. Their absence shouldn't surprise her. "They'll be okay," she says, answering the question Nikola won't ask with a confidence she doesn't feel.

Nikola squeezes her shoulder, and on nothing more than instinct and desperation Helen leans back against him. He puts his arms around her and his cheek against hers. "You did good," he says, quietly.

She stepped out of time and came back again, and somehow, over a long, slow century she made a plan that would come to fruition amid death and destruction. That she'd convinced herself of the inevitability and necessity of her actions made the end result no easier to bear.

She did good.

"For what it's worth," Nikola says, when she doesn't respond, "I am sorry. About everything."

Helen's breath hitches. She had been holding herself together with the iron will born of centuries of practice, but there was something undeniably touching about Nikola's genuine sympathy. "I didn't want any of this, you know."

"I know." The tone of his voice changes. "When you say that, you don't mean kissing me, do you?"

Helen laughs, and suddenly has to bite back a sob. Oh, Nikola. She blinks, and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She lost her handkerchief at some point. "I hadn't really planned that part," she admits. That's another choice with consequences that must be faced, but not now.

"Helen. You offend me."

James would have loved this place that she's built; Nigel would have been proud and skeptical and intrigued; John, well, who knows. Helen and Nikola are the last of the Five, destined to spend lifetimes watching those around them grow old and die. Nikola may be an arrogant, egotistical, selfish ass but he is, in so many ways, the only unchanging thing in her world.

Helen says, "I have something to show you."

"Is it the wine cellar?" Nikola asks, a note of hope in his voice.

She could use a good glass (or more) of her finest vintage. "Not quite. Call it a detour."

"Well then. As much as I enjoy embracing you – lead on."

There's no one here to see her descent into weakness, so Helen takes his hand and guides him to the elevator. It takes them slowly down into the rock of Hollow Earth, below what she thinks of as the private wing of her new Sanctuary. Here the hallways are panelled, identical to the ones she had loved at home and unlike the more institutional walls of the more public areas. Stepping out of the elevator she can almost convince herself – for a brief second or two, before her new reality asserts itself – that as long as she has this, she won't miss what she destroyed.

Nikola has the sense not to comment on the hallways.

The room at the end of the corridor is large and of necessity windowless, but well-lit by unobtrusive Praxian light sources. Many people would, perhaps, find the aesthetics of the room jarring; certainly, even by Helen's sensibilities the latest scientific equipment, from above and below the surface, is at odds with the antique furniture that she purchased a hundred years ago. But Nikola's eyes widen as he takes it all in, prowling slowly about the room, touching and lifting and poking at the things he discovers. "Helen," he says, eventually, his voice low and awed, "you built me a lab. It is mine, isn't it? Heinrich -"

"Henry's is next door. It's a little more industrial chic than yours. There is a connecting door, and I do expect both of you to play nicely." For a few minutes, watching Nikola's expression of something like joy, Helen forgets the heaviness that's been weighing on her. "You have a room, too. On the staff corridor."

"Next to yours?"

"As it happens, yes."

Nikola tears his eyes away from his new toys and comes over to her. "Are you offering me a job?" he asks, without a trace of his customary devil-may-care levity. He's taking this seriously, and Helen finds herself unexpectedly grateful.

"I'm offering you a home. What you choose to do after that is up to you."

"Well, then." A long, slow smile, identical to the one that had fascinated her in their Oxford days, spreads itself across Nikola's face. "Take me to the wine cellar, before this room sparks my genius and I lose all sense of proportion." This time it's he that reaches for her hand.

As with the antiques that litter Nikola's rooms and her own, Helen has been collecting wine since she put this plan into motion. She had hoped to have her staff here to celebrate the realisation of her dream; instead it seems she may end up drowning her sorrows, although not quite alone. On his first glimpse of the wine cellar Nikola assumes his happiest face yet, and he has to visibly contain his glee as he eyes bottle after bottle, noting Helen's favourites and his own with the attitude of a child on its first trip to a candy store. He selects a fine Serbian burgundy, Helen chooses a cabernet and together they retreat back upstairs. There is a small sitting room above the garden that Helen loves, and from here she can see several species of abnormal, no longer restricted to the tiny worlds the Sanctuary network could provide. Well, certain parts of this venture have thus far been successful enough.

"To old friends," she says. Nikola has filled their glasses – with the burgundy, of course – and as she speaks Helen raises her own.

"And new beginnings."

It's a fitting toast. Conscious of him close beside her on the small couch Helen takes her time with the wine, forcing herself to concentrate on its scent, its flavour, the feel of it in her mouth. One glass of wine becomes three without either of them commenting on it and only then does the sharp ache inside her begin to dull.

Nikola breaks the silence. "This isn't like you, Helen."

"What's not like me?"

"You're drunk."

"Not quite."

"Close enough."

"I am," Helen says, with the dignity that's served her so well for so long, "in full possession of all my faculties." She would like very much to be drunk, to forget her home falling around her, to forget a friend's body dead at her feet. She has not yet been successful.

Nikola looks at her, and seems to decide to forgo pressing the point for a change. "So what are you going to do now? You've told the world about abnormals, blown up the Sanctuary, and moved into the underground city you've been building for the last century. Really, Helen. What does someone like you do next?"

It's a broad question and she's not really sure that Nikola's expecting an answer. She gives him one anyway, her next steps already unfolding in her mind. "Bring Will and Henry home and hold a memorial service for the Big Guy. Apologise to Declan for taking the Sanctuary network public without warning him first and inform him that he is now the public face of the network. Establish diplomatic relations with the Hollow Earth abnormals, with Kate's assistance. Create additional safe passageways for abnormals around the world to and from the surface." Out of breath, Helen pauses, and looks out into her new world again. "And then? I really don't know."

"Well then. When do you plan to start?"

Helen looks at the wine, and at Nikola. "Tomorrow," she says, and drinks.


End file.
